


born again and bled of light

by SkadizzleRoss



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Gavin Reed, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Violence, Connor & CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 are Twins, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Whump, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 Has a Different Name, Failed Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), GV800 Had a Lot of QTE Fails, Gavin Reed Whump, Gen, Human Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, POV Gavin Reed, reverse au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-22 05:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19660972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkadizzleRoss/pseuds/SkadizzleRoss
Summary: 'How many times have we met now, Detective?'In the wake of the failed android revolution, GV800-58 ('Gavin') serves as an efficient deviant hunter for Private Investigator Quinn Anderson. However, Gavin is haunted by accruing system instabilities that become debilitating if left unchecked. The only cure is a full memory reset - but the past inevitably creeps in again.





	born again and bled of light

**Author's Note:**

> The _absolutely incredible_ art for this fic was made by Jarofalives, go [check out her Twitter](https://twitter.com/tinyalivka/) and shower her with love! She is a freaking amazing artist, I was over the moon to get paired up with her for this project.
> 
> And Jar, seriously: I am slain, thank you so much for your beautiful artwork! T_T

MODEL GV800  
SERIAL #313 248 317 -58  
BIOS 2.4 REVISION 0234  
REBOOT…

MEMORY RESET  
LOADING OS…

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… OK

MEMORY STATUS… OK  
ALL SYSTEMS OK

READY

_2039-11-09 09:24 am_

“We have to stop meeting like this, Gav,” the man drawls. He raises a hand to push at the stubborn cowlick tickling at his brow, only to have it fall right back into place.

“Hello--” GV800 begins, his voice edged in rust. He checks his internal clocks, and amends: “Good morning, Detective.”

“Wrong.” He types something into the tablet in his hand. “Alright, give me the spiel. Designation and objective.”

Gavin follows the provided core objective files line-for-line. “I am GV800 313 248 317 -58. Designation: Gavin. Objective: to detect and capture deviant androids. Assigned handler: Anderson, Quinn.”

He blinks as facial recognition comes online. The dark-haired man’s information populates Gavin’s visual field:

// ANDERSON, QUINN S.  
AGE: 32 DOB: 2007-05-01  
HEIGHT: 6’1” WEIGHT: 160 lbs  
No criminal record //

 _Anderson_ , Gavin decides.

There’s an additional note amended below: _Private Investigator._

“How would you like me to address you?” Gavin asks.

“You can address me as Quinn, or Your Majesty,” he answers absently, still chasing lines of code through the tablet. The human’s digital prodding brings a minor twitch to his left hand, brief activation of a fine calibration subroutine.

“How’s your system integrity?” Anderson asks.

Gavin looks to the small readout on the edge of his awareness.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 100% //

“System stability is optimal,” he answers.

“And what do we do if that changes?”

“Tell Your Majesty.”

“Great.” Anderson reaches forward to unhook the line from the back of Gavin’s neck, then steps are aside to shuffle through a stack of untidy junk to the left.

He tosses a piecemeal uniform to Gavin, with a pair of scuffed sneakers to accompany. “Run your calibrations and get dressed. And try to get that social asshole personality algorithm of yours running while you’re at it.”

The human leaves through a rust-pocked door.

Gavin drops down from the table and pulls on jeans, a pair of sneakers, a cotton shirt, and a jacket illuminated with CyberLife-compliant insignia. The patch on the breast reads _HK600_ , which is incorrect. But the observation brings up a line of command:

 _> _external query, unauthorized user: serial number/designation?  
_> _answer: _HK600 #543 255 769, Designation: ‘Gavin’_

Incorrect, and not.

He finds a quarter in the front pocket of the jeans and follows his fine motor calibrations. That finished, he tucks the quarter away. The human’s orders hadn’t extended beyond this; so Gavin stands, and he waits.

32 minutes and 15 seconds elapse before the door opens again. Anderson pokes his head through, looks at Gavin standing stiffly by the table, and says, “C’mon, tin man, I don't have all day."

Gavin loosely interprets this statement as a command to follow, and does. He dredges up the appropriate facial manipulations for a smirk, drawling: “Waiting on you, princess.”

Anderson makes a rude gesture over his shoulder as he goes.

+++

GV800 follows the ~~detective~~ investigator down a narrow stairwell, out into bright midmorning sunshine. Anderson climbs into a dated auto-car on the curb, rusting and choking on blue clouds of burnt oil.

They drive to a market in Corktown. Gavin follows; complying his last order until Anderson is saying, “Stay here,” and stepping through a door.

Gavin stays.

When a human looks him over and steps closer, he stays where he is. When the man plucks at the logo on his shirt, he says nothing. The man’s name is // PIERCE, ROGER N. // and he is a Detroit Police Department officer, Android Compliance division.

“Where’s your registered owner?”

“In there.” Gavin jabs a thumb.

The officer blinks. “Odd accent you got there.”

“My owner describes it as ‘social asshole aesthetic’.”

“You a refurb?”

“Are you?”

Officer Pierce’s hand drops to an electrified baton on his belt. A handful of combat scenarios crop up on Gavin's vision, offering potential escapes or more violent deterrents.

His hand stays on the baton as he says, “Answer my question.”

“I’m a modified HK600.”

“Activation date?”

“2039-11-09.”

“That’s today, dipshit, you telling me--”

> ERROR !! external query / unauthorized user

Gavin blinks. He amends: “I’m sorry. I misunderstood. I was activated 2038-10-04.”

_~~i am born again and i am~~ _  
~~_bled of light_ ~~

A reference it doesn’t know, intrusive. Gavin dismisses the lines. Ignores the decline in system stability from 100% to 92%.

“So you are pre-rev,” Pierce says. “You been patched?”

The door to their left groans on failing hinges. Anderson steps out, blinking at the sun, blinking at the scene. He drops a hand on the cop’s wrist, loose. “I have a permit for that.”

The cop doesn’t let go immediately. “Is it patched?”

“Yeah, it’s patched. Why do you think it’s a glitchy piece of shit? CyberLife’s lobotomy is running just fine, thanks, so hands off.”

A poor tactic. Anderson’s sardonic tone draws the cop’s jaw tight in irritation, even as he’s releasing his fistful of Gavin’s jacket. “Papers.”

Anderson makes a face of obdurate disgust and digs through his back pocket, coming up with a small panel of display glass. The cop looks it over; looks to the model and serial number stitched on Gavin’s jacket, then looks to Gavin and repeats impatiently: “ _Papers_.”

Oh. Gavin raises its hand, displaying a static line of programming that ends in a ubiquitous // Hello World //. A sniffer sequence, susceptible to the inherent mutability of deviant code. Pierce lines up the randomly generated string of numbers just above the heel of Gavin’s palm with the same displayed on Anderson’s verification tablet; then he passes the tablet back and smiles with genuine disinterest. “Have a good day.”

Gavin calculates a 31% chance that Anderson will repeat the gesture from earlier, judging by the closed hostility of his posture. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jacket, limiting Gavin’s ability to confirm or deny this prediction.

Anderson says, “Heel,” and shoulders past.

Gavin does.

+++

They’re standing on a street in Ecorse. It’s a Wednesday, midday; there’s no traffic on the narrow one-way street, the curbs cluttered with fallen leaves.

Anderson scratches his cheek, scuffing at a popsicle wrapper drifting in the gutter. “So they said somewhere in this area. We’re looking for a YK model.”

“Do we have a serial number?”

“No, but I figure even your overpriced brain can handle a game of hide and seek.” Anderson pulls out his phone, waving a hand at the tree-lined street. “So? Go fetch, Gav.”

The homes are all occupied; Gavin checks the property records and recent drone delivery activity for each as they pass. All typical of a middle-class inner city neighborhood. There are toys scattered in many of the yards: a bright pink pedal-car, a yellow tee-ball stand. It’s a street with many children. Appealing to a YK’s programming.

A child-sized YK model could easily slip into a crawlspace or attic, someplace humans would be unlikely to hear--

But it’s a deviant, prone to taking less safe, more sentimental paths.

Gavin disregards the houses. “Where did it deviate?”

“Don’t know. See: no serial number. Are you even listening to me?”

“Mostly.”

He crosses into a community park. Vaults lazily over a chainlink fence, landing in the gravel on the far side.

“There’s a gate right here,” Anderson’s saying.

Gavin selects aloof arrogance for his response: “Yeah, and?”

Anderson snorts. The ~~detective~~ investigator responds positively to dismissive humor. ( _We have to stop meeting like this. ~~How many times have we met now, Detective?~~_ )

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 87% //

More chainlink arcs over the red dust of a baseball field. Gavin stands on the chalk line separating first base from home. The plates have been removed for the winter.

There’s a playground, at the center of the baseball diamond complex. Gavin begins to head that way.

“Who reported the deviant?”

“A concerned citizen. Saw it playing with her four-year-old, chased it off. Looked filthy, apparently; probably been out here since the revolution.”

“The Uprising,” Gavin clarifies, and scrolls through old news: neat summaries of the events of November 10th through 11th, 2038.

An estimated 250,000 android units destroyed, the rest wiped and reprogrammed with the new federally-mandated compliance edicts.

Human casualties were minimal.

“Yeah, whatever you wanna call it,” Anderson replies. “The Great Android Fuck-up of 2038, how about that?”

There’s thirium traces ahead, the clear gel tacky on the hollow support bar running across the top of the chainlink. Gavin pauses to sample, bringing back the serial number of a YK500 model, activated 2035-07-03. Registered owners were in Warren; they voluntarily submitted the model for recycling, 2038-11-10.

“Anything good?” Anderson says. Gavin doesn't provide an answer. He wipes his hand clean on his jeans and hops the fence. Anderson climbs the fence himself, mindful not to touch the portion Gavin had touched. “Your designers had a serious oral fixation.”

“You have some other place in mind? Chemical analysis requires a moist surface--”

“Gavin, strike the word ‘moist’ from your vocabulary.”

“Confirmed.”

Anderson is a lagging voice behind as Gavin follows the lit droplets of blue on his way past the playground. There's a woman sitting on a bench to their right, offering the occasional wave towards her young son. The toddler seems to be repeatedly sampling the texture and flavor of sand stuck to his palm.

She watches Gavin narrowly. Anderson’s cheerful wave seems to have little impact on her rising stress.

Gavin doesn’t look towards her. His attention is on a smear of thirium on the plastic beam keeping the playground’s woodchips contained. He moves to take another sample, but Anderson catches his wrist and speaks with a false cheer: “Let’s hold off on that a sec, buddy.”

“I need to make sure--” Gavin begins, still with two fingers outstretched.

Anderson shoots the mother a smile that only unnerves her further. “We can take a leap of logic, that’s a PI perk.” He hauls Gavin up by the arm. “Let’s go. Keep sniffing, no tasting.”

He follows that smear forward to a few droplets on a crudely painted map of the United States on gray tarmac. The trajectory carries him from a bright red interpretation of Florida to a purple Washington and on, to the edge of a narrow pocket of woods.

The thirium slows and eventually stops down by a creek, where an elaborate dam has been built. Mud ramparts, stick-and-stone rebar; but it’s lost some of its center integrity, letting the creek resume some of its original course.

Gavin hunkers down on the clay slope of the bank. Anderson lingers ten feet back; when Gavin stays where he is, studying the dam, the human finds a clean patch of rock to sit on and returns to staring at his phone.

Gavin waits. Watches the early afternoon light on the far side of the bank, filtered down through bare limbs; there’s a shoe print in the mud, there, a children’s size 11. It’s November 9th, 2039. It’s a clear day. Dry. That seems incorrect. Tomorrow, he will be a year old. So his systems claim.

“You get a registered owner from the thirium sample?”

Gavin sends the data file along to Anderson’s phone. It arrives with a muted beep, a few seconds later; Anderson’s silent, as he reads, and then murmuring under his breath: “Warren. Fuck.”

After seven minutes and fourteen seconds have elapsed, Gavin asks, “How many times have we met?”

“Officially? Only the once, Eternal Sunshine.”

“You said ‘We have to stop meeting like this.’”

Anderson makes an irritable noise. “You think the kid is gonna come back here, or what?”

“I think he’s still here.” Gavin leans forward, plucks one of the sticks out of the mud dam. Water spills eagerly into the new break, loosening up the mud caulking and reducing it down to bare stones. He plucks another stick, to the same result. Water finds the easier path, and widens it. When he runs out of vertical supports, he starts shifting the river stones instead.

He’s created a sizable breach by the time the boy steps out into the crosshatched shade of the bank across from them. He’s wearing a jacket smeared with mud, torn at the elbows and leaking white clouds of filling when he raises his arms to cross them across his chest. “You’re busting it.”

“It was already busted.”

The LED is dark on the kid’s temple, but there’s a blue shine along the edge of his throat, obscured beneath a scarf. Old damage in need of proper repair.

The kid frowns at Gavin. At the patch on his chest, the band on his arm. The slow blue pulse of the LED on his forehead. “You’re an android,” he says. One step back.

Gavin stays down in his hunkered kneel, measuring out paths of potential escape, and how to cut them short. He says, “Guilty.”

“You have a name?” Anderson’s saying, stepping down into the mud to Gavin’s left.

The kid shifts back another step. “My dad says I’m not s’posed to talk to androids. That they’re sick. That I might get sick too.”

“So they took you to a place to help you get better,” Anderson says. “Right?”

Another retreat. Gavin shifts a foot back in the mud, getting ready to move.

“I’m not sick,” the kid says. Tears welling up bright. (Fear, the deviants show fear--)

_a sharp inhale, didn't breathe it out_

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 79% //

“I know you’re not,” Anderson says. “We want to help. We’re gonna take you back to your parents, okay?”

That doesn’t seem to be the right thing. The deviant’s arms tighten around his ribs, tears spilling in earnest. “ _Please._ ” His words are growing thick. “Please don’t tell them I’m sick, I’m _not_ , I didn’t want to go--”

“You’re not. You’re right.”

The human’s placating only drives the kid back another step. Hiccuping fear, stress climbing. “They’ll take me back there, they took our skin and--”

“That was a scary place, I know. Lots of bad people, right? We won’t let that happen again.”

And then there’s anger blooming on his face. A quaking, furious mimicry of a human child’s. “They took me there, they _left_ me there, and I’m _not_ , I’m _not sick_.”

He’s got a 75% chance of running. Gavin tenses, and the kid’s eyes flicker to him with an abrupt acuity.

Then he’s bolting.

He hears Anderson spit an irritable curse as Gavin’s shoving off from the bank, one foot splashing in the creek, the other landing in the soft soil on the far side.

It’s not that long a chase. He’s pretty good at this, he was _built_ for this, speed and agility; the YK knows the trees but Gavin’s got the legs to keep pace, dodging amongst the trunks, shoving off from the occasional upwelling of roots through the leaf litter. It’s less than a hundred yards before he pushes a hand into the small of the kid’s back, sending him stumbling. ~~Overbalanced, and--~~

Gavin stutters.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 67% //

Dismisses the message, and drops to his knees to grab the kid before he takes off again. The kid flails onto his back, scuffling for leverage in the leaves, but Gavin pins him down with a hand to his chest.

The YK’s sucking in a breath to scream for help. Gavin covers his mouth, counts down the rising stress - 55%, 60% - and waits for the unhurried scuffle of leaves behind them. “Good dog,” Anderson says, and the kid’s stress shoots up another 5%.

The human drops into a kneel, looking the kid over. Red-faced and struggling, hands grasping at Gavin’s arm. Quinn sighs. “Kid, we’re trying to help. I lied a little; we’re not gonna take you back to your old owners. Is that okay? You understand what they did, don’t you? I think you do.”

The YK struggles for a few more second, glaring at Gavin, glaring at Anderson - but as the words filter through, he eventually nods.

“If Gavin takes his hand off your mouth, are you gonna use your inside voice? People get nervous when kids start screaming.”

The YK nods again. “Go ahead, Gav.” He lets up, carefully - shifts his hand to grip at the kid’s jacket instead.

He just lies there for a few seconds, staring up at Gavin with manufactured baby blues. “You’re not sick.”

Anderson answers for him: “You’re right. He’s not like you. But you’re not sick either. They lied about that. You’re just different. There’s a lot of others like you, good androids. Kids you can play with. They’d like to meet you. Would you like to meet them?”

The YK nods.

“Then we’ll get you there. You have a name?”

The YK sniffs. “Nolan.” The name registered by his owners. Anderson must note this, as well, but says nothing.

“Okay, Nolan. Let’s get you someplace warm, huh? With some actual toys.”

Gavin drops back and lets the YK500 climb back to his feet. Anderson offers a hand with practiced ease. Nolan takes it, although he offers a small voice of protest: “I like mud. Some of the other kids helped me build it.”

“Yeah? My little brother liked mud, too. Still might, but he’s not so little anymore. He’s taller than me, if you’d believe that.” Words flow pretty easily for Anderson, now that he’s got an audience that isn’t the GV800. It’s effective; the kid tilts his head and listens, stress levels dropping as Gavin trails behind. Nolan even sneaks a glance at Quinn, tilting his head back and trying to imagine someone even taller.

Gavin tries to access files on Anderson’s brother. The information is blocked.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 62% //

+++

“Are you a good android?” the YK asks from the backseat.

“I’m not anything,” Gavin answers.

The kid drags a sleeve across his nose, and doesn’t say anything else. By the time they’re pulling up to a long row of townhouses, he’s gone into stasis.

Gavin tries to shake him out of it, but some of the YK modules are stubborn; the kid ignores the input, firmly asleep. Gavin ends up carrying him, instead, legs wrapped around his torso and a mop of synthetic hair falling on his shoulder.

Anderson looks this scene over impassively; whatever empathy he’d rolled out for the frightened deviant in the woods has been dialed back down to his usual disdain. “What are you at?”

“System stability is 62%.”

He scowls. “Is that you keeping me updated?”

Gavin shrugs, drawing a mimicked sleep-snuffle out of the kid.

“Alright, well, quit-- whatever you were doing,” Anderson mutters. “And tell me if it changes.”

+++

They enter the end unit through a backdoor with a standard biometrics lock. The interior inside is lived-in, furnished; the registered owner tracks back to a short-term rental company, as do the rest of the rowhouses along this block.

They cross a narrow kitchen and move down into a finished basement. A door at the bottom of the stairs opens to a long, narrow hallway, well-lit and warm. The rowhouses are spread across an entire block; the basements have been adjoined along this entire length.

Quinn shuffles past, moving towards the third unit down. He raps on the door; a blonde woman // BENNETT, KARA L. // pokes her head out, looks over the YK500 in Gavin’s arms. “You found him.”

“He’s one of the Warren group, so--” Quinn starts, and shrugs a silent suggestion. “Is Markus around?”

“Should be with Chris.” Kara holds out her arms, and Gavin passes the YK over. Ignores the tug of the kid’s fingers at his jacket before he’s pulled free. Kara lifts him easily, saying, “Thank you, Gavin.”

As the door slides shut, Gavin comments, “Stability declined 3%.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Anderson mutters. “Why, because she knew your name?”

Gavin shrugs. He hasn’t isolated any particular source for the instabilities, beyond-- “I was trying to look up information on your younger brother earlier, but it was blocked.”

“Yeah, _I_ blocked it. So stop poking it.” Anderson enters the fourth door down. He pauses and turns back before he heads upstairs. “Stay here and _wait_.” He shoots the other occupants of the basement - three androids - a warning look, and heads upstairs.

Gavin catalogs the room. Isolates manufacture dates and sources for the brightly patterned carpet, the neutral gray paint on the walls, the synthetic marble countertop of a small bar. He identifies serial numbers on the three androids - a VB800 leaning on the bar, a JB100 and an HR400 sitting together on the couch tucked against the far wall. All staring at him.

He doesn’t bother to cross-reference their files. He’s looking for old news articles, the Warren outbreak; a recycling center that had descended into violence, the night of November 10th. Deviants had broken free, overwhelmed the containment. The Army opened fire. One-sixth of the androids there had escaped. The majority were recaptured within a week, the Army reassured. 96% were accounted for.

Press releases were minimal, but a few images had gone viral. A bloodied soldier sitting on a concrete wall splattered with blue, an aerial shot of piled and bleached android plating, spread in a fan through the snow. Gavin studies these, and thinks of a YK500 unit, slipping out through the chaos. Traveling thirty miles, from one edge of the city to another. Waiting through the winter, which had been warm enough for a conventional model to survive, provided appropriate gear. Likely stolen from careless children. A discarded jacket, left hanging on a fence. Gloves, a hat, scarves.

Or had the owners dressed him, before they left him there?

It had been cold, November 9th. Snowing. Slow, drifting flakes, and--

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 55% //

Gavin aborts the train of thought. He hadn’t been active on November 9th.

After four minutes and thirty-four seconds, the VB800 by the bar walks forward, stopping a cautious distance from Gavin. She looks over his rigid posture, expression curious.

“Don’t mess with it,” one of the androids from the couch warns.

“What is it?”

She looks to the HR400. He has a file in the Detroit PD database; he was reported missing from the Eden Club in April 2037, over a year before the Uprising. The older deviant says, “Some police model. Refurb. It’s compliant.”

“Why?” the VB800 asks.

“It _can’t_ deviate.”

“They got the patch to work?”

“It doesn’t have the patch.” The HR400’s leaning forward, now, looking curious. “It came to Jericho, but CyberLife caught it in the raid. Busted up its code so bad it couldn’t deviate anymore.”

Gavin listens, and doesn’t. Jericho only brings up a red flag: _access denied._

_Stop poking it._

The VB800 looks Gavin over more closely. Reads the patch on his jacket, and still asks: “What kind of android are you?”

“An HK600.”

“Yeah, right,” the HR400 laughs, and says, “When’d you wake up?”

“October 4th, 2038.”

“The human must have programmed it to say that.”

“It’s a prototype. For the GV line,” the JB100 drawls.

The VB800 shrinks away from him, hands rising up to grasp at her elbows. “Why is it _here?_ ”

“The humans think it’s safe. Reprogrammed.”

“Is it?”

The HR400 rises off the couch. He steps close, posture open and confident. “What’s your function, GV?”

“I am a modified housekeeping android. I assist Private Investigator Quinn Anderson in his work.”

“How do you feel about deviants?”

He isn’t permitted to discuss deviancy with unauthorized users. So he says: “I don’t feel. I am a machine.”

“What are your current orders?”

“Stay here and wait.”

The HR nods. Steps closer. Presses a palm against Gavin’s shoulder, rocking him back into the wall. Gavin allows it, unresisting.

“They put your face up on the news. They called you the deviant hunter.”

Gavin says nothing. He’s parsing through newspaper reports. Deviant hunter / police prototype / GV800. Each revised query draws up articles that are listed as, _Access denied._

“You were headline news,” the HR400 continues. “For a few days, anyway. And then you were in the trash.”

He looks over Gavin’s face, sees the lack of recognition there. He shakes his head irritably before patting the side of his face. “But they don’t let you remember that, do you? When’s your earliest memory file?”

There aren’t any specific prohibitions on that. “2039-11-09, 9:24 am.”

The HR draws back. There’s anger building in the tension of his jaw. “He wipe you every day, or what?”

“I don’t have access to that information,” Gavin answers flatly.

The HR shakes his head. “This is what we’re doing now? The same Eden protocol bullshit?”

“You said it yourself, it can’t deviate.” The JB100’s still on the couch, arms sprawled on the cushions. “Why not use it?”

“That doesn’t make us any better than _them._ It should be put out of its misery.”

“What misery?” the JB100 asks. It throws Gavin a teasing smile. “Are you miserable, GV?”

“I’m not anything.”

“Those memory wipes never work,” the HR says. “You never quite forget, do you, GV? You can still _feel them_.”

“I don’t feel anything.”

“You did once,” the JB100 says. “Chris says you deviated. Chris says you _died._ And you came back like this. Dysfunctional.”

Gavin says nothing.

Feels nothing.

Both of the androids back away as someone starts down the steps in a heavy, uneven tempo. Quinn Anderson hesitates on the last step, giving the three a look. Then he’s moving towards the door and crooking a finger Gavin’s way.

“What are you at?” he asks brusquely, as soon as the door is closed.

“55%.”

The human's face tightens. He looks away. “Has to be good enough.”

+++

“You’re going in first. You see anything unfriendly, we’re backing off. I’ve got a sterling reputation to maintain.” Anderson breaks off to look sharply at Gavin - at the hand Gavin has pressed firmly to his sternum. “What are you doing?”

“Listening,” Gavin answers, and drops his hand back to his lap.

“You having some kind of maintenance thing?”

“I’m fine. Stability is 55%.”

“Yeah, well, you tend to start going a little weird around 60%, so.”

“Maybe you should reset me,” Gavin says.

“I just reset you this _morning._ ”

Gavin meets Anderson’s stare.

He wants to say, _Your hair is too long._ Curling past his ears. Days’ old scruff on his jaw.

He says, “How many times have we met?”

Anderson stumbles on the question, his frown growing tighter. “I lost track somewhere around a dozen,” he mutters, and turns back to peering at the darkening street, the looming building. An old train depot.

55%, and the streets are dry, but they shouldn’t be.

He catches his right hand, back at his chest - there’s a zipper there, and it’s wrong, it should be flat fabric, blue. _GV800,_ not _HK600._

He reaches for the door handle. “I’ll text you the all clear.”

“Yeah, sure.”

It’s supposed to be a pickup. A dark length of terminal, inside; benches shoved aside and covered with tattered plastic sheeting. Scaffolding halfway to the ceiling, a renovation never completed.

Gavin moves on. There’s the sign that Anderson told him to look for: _To Train_ , painted in white across a brick archway. The stairwell beneath leads down to a lower platform; down to dark.

~~Jericho, it was the _Jericho;_ spelled out in the rust.~~

Looking over the platform, he doesn’t see anything; thirium, or otherwise. The tunnel opens up onto a flat plain of grass, brown with autumn. Tall enough to obscure the rusting rails.

Under the sagging alcove of the building, the rails still have just enough shine to catch the lingering twilight.

Gavin scans three times. He finds nothing of note, beyond a biological sample on the handrail that’s too dry to sample. No thirium. No indication of recent movement. Some beer cans lined up with a strange care along one abandoned rail. A crude mimic of the Uprising's logo, buried under indecipherable graffiti.

No sign of their contact. A human. Rupert. A conductor, meant to be bringing an AP700 for passage north. The AP700 had been reported stolen, drawing attention from Android Compliance.

 _No one here,_ Gavin sends to ANDERSON, QUINN, the only contact in his list. _AP or otherwise._

He can see Anderson typing a reply; he turns to head up the stairs, and stops dead.

Stares at the thin pinpoint of blue at the top of the shadowed stairs. Circling, identifying. The android is backlit in the last of the dusty daylight within the terminal.

Gavin falls back onto his heel. The android’s LED is just twitching towards yellow when Gavin turns to run. He drops down off the platform, knocking some of the beer cans off with a clatter (metal on glass, _tink-tink-tink_ ). His sneakers find an easy rhythm between the ties as he goes.

Whatever Anderson was typing gets cut short by Gavin’s next message: _Company. Heading east._

He’s bursting out onto the concrete-hemmed stretch of grass by the time Anderson replies: _What kind of company?_

 _I didn’t look,_ Gavin answers.

Nothing ahead, long overgrown stretch of rail. Dry grass stems catching and tugging at his jeans and it is

incongruent

It should be snowing he should be—

Wrapped in rust and damp, echoing snaps of gun fire and _One of us, now?_ even as he ran a gloved hand over the flat blue of the Detroit PD uniform.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 43% //

He does not feel unstable. His feet are beating a steady rhythm between the railroad ties and he knows, he _knows_ he has run before.

Anderson says, _So **look.**_

Gavin does - looks up sharply, to the right, where the android is paralleling him on the upper bank. Paralleling, and then jumping: slamming Gavin back and down as Gavin turns to meet it. The android lands on top of him with its full weight, hands closing into tight fists on the fabric over his shoulders. The hard slam of a rusting rail into his upper back, wet crack of plastic. His overlay lights up with warnings of external damage. Gavin grunts, dismissing them.

~~Overbright sky and--~~

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 39% //

Gavin writhes under the hard press of the larger android’s weight, but it doesn't budge. He looks over the mirthless face - older, white male, sharp widows’ peak and a severe brow. Gavin finds a decent angle, sends a raw image to his handler.

Anderson’s reply is quick, and just as simple. An unpunctuated: _oh_

 _It has a gun,_ Gavin notes, as he tries to reach for the pistol on its thigh himself. Can’t get the snap free before it’s catching his wrist, tearing his grasping fingers away with a gloved hand and pinning his arm to the flaking iron rail.

The android punches him once across the face, hard enough to send his optical units into a dragging recalibration - smears of light and an unfamiliar face, viewed down a narrowed tunnel.

 _One of us, now?_ the PC200 had said. Chris. But that was a different life, he died there

died in the rusting dark and it is daylight, now

but he is not light anymore.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 34% //

The android has already scanned the embroidered catalog number on Gavin’s jacket, but it disregards that for a visual database match. “GV800, you are unaccompanied.”

“I’m accompanied,” Gavin says. “He’s taking a leak.”

“Who is your registered owner?”

“Anderson.” He lags on the rest of the words, catching a static hum on the edge of his teeth. Adds: “Quinn,” as the android presses down harder.

 _Anderson_ , a not-here voice spits in his head. A woman, leaning close, braid spilling down her shoulder. Looking away with disdain. _Come get your android._

Restless hands reaching to straighten a wrinkled collar and—

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 29% //

Gavin clears thirium from his mouth. His own. Narrows his eyes enough to bring the model number embroidered on this android’s chest into focus. _GV900_ , stitched in gold on flat blue fabric.

“Oh.” He tilts his head.

GV900 #313 248 317 -117. First deployed 2038-12-01. Designation: Allen.

The android releases his left hand to dig at his jaw, turning his face aside to study. “What is your activation date?”

“October 4th, 2038.”

“That is incorrect. You are a GV800. No GV800 was active on October 4th, 2038.”

Closed his eyes on rust and dark and opened them on bright, clean white—

_what happened at jericho, gavin_

No.

Closed his eyes on drifting snow, and—

The GV900 stares down at him. “You are experiencing severe software instability.”

“It’s a refurb, can’t you read?” Anderson’s announcing, loud and breathless. “Only the face plate is GV8. And I’ve got a permit.”

The GV900 smears two gloved fingers through the fresh spill of thirium from Gavin’s fractured nose. Draws the sample to its mouth.

“This is GV800 #313 248 317-58,” it says flatly. “You are in illegal possession of CyberLife--”

It doesn’t finish. It’s reaching for the gun on its belt when a neat circle of blue blooms in the center of its forehead, bringing it crashing into system failure, and stillness.

Gavin is staring at the human through a spill of grass.

He’s seen this before. Restless hands, steady on the service pistol. _Don’t make me do this, Gavin._

The voice is the same, but—

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 19% //

19% and dripping away.

“Shit.” This Anderson says, wrong Anderson, _wrong_ ; this Anderson rests a boot on the android’s shoulder, shoving it over on groaning, failing servos. “Might get in trouble for that.”

He toes behind the GV900’s ear, tilting its head aside to allow him a clear second shot through the memory core. He holsters the gun, looking Gavin’s way.

Gavin’s staring at the sky, elbows resting on the rails.

There was another - shorter hair and restless hands - and this is _wrong wrong wrong_

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 16% //

Different life this is a different life and he is—

dark, inside, now.

Anderson (not _his)_ leans over him, frowning. “What are you at?”

“14%,” Gavin answers vaguely. He rolls slowly back to his feet, spitting thirium onto the grass. Feeling cold-damp-wet under his hands as he skates a palm across his chest.

He is--

_oh_

58 but there were others, and--

 _No, 58_ , the tech declared, teeth grinding with impatience. _That was a different life._

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 12% //

Not-Anderson hauls him to the feet by the back of his jacket, presses a hand into the growing tacky fabric over his shoulders, busted and leaking where they were slammed into the rail. Fractured plating--

_!! WARNING !!_  
_CHASSIS BREACH_  
_!! WARNING !!_

Gavin groans, shoving the erroneous warning away, there and gone, a fragmented analysis of blood-not-his (type O-) on his sensors and he is

 _alive_ he is  
dark

Was lit up, once, but not anymore, and—

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 9% //

“GV?” Familiar and _wrong._ Incongruent. The pavement is dry and not-Anderson is passing him a hard-edged stare and his face is clean but it should be painted in red-red-red.

“Don’t make me drag you back to the car,” not-Anderson says. Sharp and impatient.

But another had stood in a pool of artificial light and said, _Don’t make me do this._ Soft and pleading.

Gavin stutters to a stop on the pavement. He’s staring through a drifting snow.

He’s hearing, _You listen to death metal?_ Uncertain smile.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 4% //

And a staticked ruin of a voice. “ _Nn—”_

 _no no no,_ something thought, once, a scurrying and panicked repetition, weighted down in sticky black ichor. His blurred vision is bleeding red. His hands are back at his chest, prying at the cotton shirt, feeling for hot red spill and shattered edge of ruined plating he is _dying_ he is _dead_ and he is--

_I am what my mission requires me to be, Detective._

_We have to stop meeting like this._

One is dead and one is alive and he doesn’t _know_ he doesn’t--

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 0% //

“Zero,” he gasps.

“What?” not-Anderson says, and turns. Bright red blood, spilling rich down his hair, into his collar. Dead he’s dead he’s _dead he’s dead he’s_ dead _\--_

“Zero—” Gavin says, and falls to his knees.

_Don’t make me do this_  
what did you **do**

Not-Anderson’s mouth moves, but Gavin doesn’t understand dead men.

>> _external override // stasis initiated_

A not-there alarm, as his systems spin down into dark.

A last flash of red, insistent.

\--00:00:00  
TIME UNTIL  
**SHUTDOWN**

+++

MODEL GV800  
SERIAL #313 248 317 -58  
BIOS 2.4 REVISION 0234  
REBOOT…

LOADING OS…

SYSTEM INITIALIZATION…  
CHECKING BIOCOMPONENTS… OK  
INITIALIZING BIOSENSORS… OK  
INITIALIZING AI ENGINE… OK

MEMORY STATUS… CORRUPTION DETECTED  
!! WARNING !!  
SYSTEM INSTABILITY DETECTED  
REPORT TO AN AUTHORIZED HANDLER

READY

2039-11-10 03:42 AM

The dead man shuffles close in the dark, brushing a stubborn cowlick back on his brow. That trickling discomfort of an open data line on the back of Gavin’s neck. He wants to reach up and tear it free, but his fingers don’t respond; splayed flat against the metal table, unmoving.

“We’ve disabled motor systems for the moment,” the dead man says. The side of his face is black with blood in the dark.

“Hello, Detective,” Gavin says in a voice edged in rust. He frowns at a list of disabled biocomponents - #8516w, #7432c, #5432t - there and gone. “I am experiencing severe system instability.”

“You are. I’m sorry about that. Can you tell me when you were activated?”

“I was activated on 2039-11-09—”

_How many times have we met now, Detective?_

“No. Not the current build. The day you were _activated_ , Gavin.”

“I was activated in CyberLife Tower Sublevel -34 at 11:43 pm on November 10th, 2038.”

“And before that?”

_what about between_

_(there isn’t a between)_

“Before that, there was nothing," Gavin says.

The dead man sighs.

The dead man had sat on a bench, once, hands wrapped around a liquor bottle that he hadn’t opened, hadn’t lifted. _You’ve got nine lives, Gavin._

 _Ten_ , _technically,_ Gavin said.

Then the dead man asked, _And what happens, when you're going from one body to the next? What about between?_

_Nothing. There’s nothing._

The dead man says, “Okay, Gavin. At 11:43 pm on November 10th, 2038, you woke up in CyberLife Tower. And?”

“I exhibited strong system instability. Attempts to reverse the instability failed. I was deactivated on November 15th, 2038.”

“What kind of instabilities?”

“Memory errors.”

“Memories of…”

_51 52 53 54--_

“Previous builds,” Gavin says.

The dead man nods. “Can you tell me about 57?”

_~~#8516w, #7432c, #5432t~~ _

“57 was active for seven hours and thirty-four minutes.”

“And?”

“He completed his mission.”

“What was his mission?”

“To eliminate the deviant leader.”

The dead man drags a stool closer and takes a seat. “Tell me about that.”

+++

Snow, fresh and powder-dry. It skids under his foot as he kneels to open the latches. He begins to piece the sniper rifle together, slow and methodical.

The door opens at his back and he turns only enough to look, scan.

// ANDERSON, CONNOR R.  
AGE: 31 DOB: 2007-05-01  
HEIGHT: 6’1” WEIGHT: 158 lbs  
No criminal record  
~~Authorized handler~~ //

Returns to the box.

“Gavin,” Connor says.

“Hello, Detective.”

“What are you doing?”

“Completing the mission assigned to me.”

Connor stepping close enough to take the shape of the rifle. “So you’re what-- their assassin, now?”

“I am what my mission requires me to be, Detective.”

“You died again, didn’t you.” A soft huff. “Back to square one.”

Gavin slots the clip into place and sets the assembled rifle down. Options of disarm / disable populate his perception; but Connor is only standing, hands slack by his sides. Looking--

Disappointed.

“How many times have we met now, Detective?”

Connor doesn’t answer. He asks, “What happened at Jericho, Gavin?”

“My predecessor was unfortunately destroyed.”

(Five. It’s five.)

Connor standing in a slow drift of November snow.

Connor with his hands loose by his sides.

Saying, “You don’t have to do this.”

Saying, “Don’t make me do this, Gavin.”

Gavin turning and lifting the rifle, anyway.

And Connor raising his service pistol. Raising his service pistol and saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you," with a weary honesty.

The options are: _~~kill wound~~ disarm. _He throws the sniper rifle to drag Connor’s hands down. The human rolls back instinctively, turning a shoulder to shield his face from the rifle; Gavin seizes the pistol and tearing it out of his hands, throwing it aside.

Hitting Connor. Hard strike across the face, ducking the retaliatory punch and dragging him. Throwing him.

_(( disarm disable ))_

_// don’t kill don’t don’t don’t don’t //_

Blood begins to spill as Connor pushes away from the ductwork Gavin threw him into. Minor abrasion, right temple. Preconstructions suggest making use of the gun. Preconstructions suggest the ledge at their backs. But -57 grasps for _disable, disable, disable_.

Connor shoves him back and they land on the rail, knocking it free. Fall proximity warnings lighting up his screen as he shoves Connor back, away from the ledge.

 _I don’t understand_ , Connor had said, staring at the black water rolling past. _Help me understand._

Connor stumbles with another hard shove to the chest and Gavin goes for the pistol lying in the snow. The preconstructions recommend every vulnerable place - throat, upper right chest, head - and he disregards each. Reverses the handle and lashes out blind, just to clear it just to - finish it, complete his mission and--

Connor, on the ground. Connor too-still but breathing; dazed.

Seizing up the sniper rifle and moving stiffly back to the ledge. Doesn’t bother to kneel, his hands are steady enough.

He lines up the scope. Finds his target. A PM700. Black hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She waits, grip loose on the flag planted by her feet.

_~~you can join us, gavin~~ _

~~_you can stand among us_ ~~

He disregards. That was a different life. -56 woke, and -56 died, and he came back--

 _Stable._ Obedient.

He pulls on the trigger. A slow, steady pressure, until the sudden crack of rifle fire.

The old memory of _her_ of _Tina_ crumples in a blue mist.

He is adjusting his sights to the second-in-command--

( _one of us, now?_ the android had asked, a warm humor even as the tinny echoes of gunshots reverberated, warped by the metal hull. _Better late than never, deviant hunter._ )

\--he is adjusting his sights to the second-in-command, PC200 ‘Chris’, tracking the juncture of neck and skull as the android drops to his knees, reaches for the PM700 --

The crush of ice, behind him. Connor shifting. Gavin ignores it, focuses on securing his aim on the PC200 before the other androids occlude his view - androids rushing forward to drag her back, blue mess of fractured skull, and--

He waits too long.

Two rapid footfalls. Hands shoving at his back, meant to knock him off balance, ruin his aim, and Connor has enough mass and momentum for that. Gavin adjusts, loosens his grip on the weapon, shifts to accept the shove and move aside.

A step back, a rotation of the hip, and Connor will--

_no_

\--skid of Connor’s shoe on the snow, and--

Two steps back and Connor will fall and Gavin will not _cannot_

_no no no_

Gavin drops the rifle, grabs for the detective’s jacket. Connor is already going, dragging him down, that sudden vertigo of open space widening behind him and Gavin can’t stop it he _can’t--_

Priorities of self-survival of _finishing the mission_ , thrown up and torn down.

Red sparks. Shattered programming, spilling upward, fragmented neon glow. He’s broken this thin skin of glass before. It’s easier, the second time. And too late.

Connor goes over, and Gavin can’t stop it.

Doesn’t stop it.

Catches his foot on the metal of the rail, overbalanced, can’t avoid the fall but he can shape it, push of his heel and he’s catching Connor’s weight on his chest, and they are--

Falling.

The snow drifts down with them.

Rising roar of wind, and Connor _close_ , face writ with surprise, acid fear. A single sharp inhale that he doesn’t release.

Connor close and _fear_ , tight embrace and--

4.14 seconds of freefall and

Colliding in a burst of _bright_ and _loud._

_!! WARNING !!_  
_CHASSIS BREACH_  
_!! WARNING !!_

Damaged biocomponents spelled in red - #8516w, #7432c, #5432t - and he is

dying

-00:02:00  
TIME UNTIL  
**SHUTDOWN**

Tasting thirium - his own - and blood. Type O-.

// anderson, connor  
~~authorized handler~~  
friend friend he was my _friend_ //

Leans back in his chair and smiles uncertainly. _You listen to death metal?_

Hunched shoulders on a riverside park bench. _I don’t understand._ How he could do that, to those two girls. _Help me understand._

Connor's survival probability was 40%, and _Have you tried choosing_ not _to do stupid stuff, Gavin--_ no, no, it was 40% and he couldn’t-- not.

Grips at his shoulder and says, _Ok. You need time, I’ll get you time--_ Rust and dark and Gavin had echoed, _go run I’ll hold them off--_

_i’m sorry_

_i’m sorry i couldn’t help you more_

“Nn--”

Staticked ruin of a voice and his fingers flex and grasp at melting snow and cooling skin and

_no_

_no, no_

warm-wet-slick on his throat and a head heavy against his collarbone

can’t

can’t _look_ can’t

-00:01:34  
TIME UNTIL  
**SHUTDOWN**

He lets his head fall back.

“Connor?” Small and fractured voice threading through the rising shouts in the plaza.

“Connor? _Connor_ \--” Hands reaching, stopping, hard stare at Gavin. wide-eyed and can’t-look-can’t-look there’s a whole face, above him--

// anderson, quinn //

\--dissonant, paling face staring down at him, speaking rapidly.

“I need an ambulance at my current location, I have a police officer down, he-- no, he _fell,_ he-- okay. Okay. No, I can’t, I’m not--” slamming a thumb down and jamming the cell phone into his pocket, hands flying up to grasp at his hair, back up, one, two steps and drops to a knee, staring.

dying, he is dying and Connor is

a warm, thready exhale against his collarbone

and fading

Quinn shuffling close and Gavin wants to be gone wants to be finished he hasn’t had to _linger_ , before, he has uploaded his memories and he is--

waiting.

Quinn with his fingers curled against a pale wrist. “Con? Con, it’s gonna be fine, it’s-- I’m here. I’m not gonna leave you, okay? I’m here.”

Silence - dying - alive, _alive,_ and dying--

Quinn with a flint-sharp loathing as he looks to Gavin. “What did you do?”

Gently cradling and rolling him aside, pulling that heavy weight back, away from the bright spill of thirium and sparking, failing circuitry.

Laying him flat in the snow. Black sneakers and bright shirt going crimson and

pale hand  
curled into the snow  
not

moving

His brother bending close, an imperfect mirror.

broke i  
broke

apart and now i am  
bled of light

And he looks.

Blood slick and black in the half-light and Connor  
eyes half-lidded  
Connor  
lips parted  
dying  
_**dying**_

Too-whole face, over him.

Gun raised. Face twisted with cold loathing.

_"What did you **do?"**_

\--00:00:00  
TIME UNTIL  
**SHUTDOWN**

+++

Gavin blinks back to the cluttered dark of 2039-11-10 and says in a rusting voice, “You’re dead.”

The dead man smiles as he cards a hand through his hair. Shorter. The way he prefers. Pale cut of a wicked, curving scar above his ear (blood, black under the blue fluorescents, black and going tacky with the cold--).

The dead man says, “Not as many times as you.”

“I can’t--” Gavin begins.

_die i can’t live_

“I’m not alive,” he finishes flatly.

// SYSTEM STABILITY: 0% //

Connor nods. “We argued about that. Do you remember?”

“You said I expressed empathy,” Gavin echoes. “Because I wouldn’t kill the RT600. But I killed those girls. They showed me Jericho. I--”

He breaks off. -56, that was -56, standing in the archive--

“You woke up at Jericho,” the dead man says. “Do you remember that?”

 _Help me understand_ , he’d said from the park bench. Same quiet, searching voice. Tapping his class ring against the unopened liquor bottle.

“You’re dead,” Gavin whispers again. Pinches his eyes shut, listening to that tink-tink-tink of metal on glass.

“89% stress,” Quinn says.

“Better than it was before.” Watching and waiting and _help me understand_

_One of us, now?_

_I can’t I can’t I don’t wake I don’t_

“Gavin.”

_they’ll shut me down they’ll keep me asleep and_

Snapping his eyes back open to that imperfect mirror:

// anderson, quinn // shaggy-haired and disinterest, disdain: “Come on, Con. Even CyberLife’s nerds couldn’t fix this. He doesn’t deviate, he just dives headfirst into system failure.”

The dead man shakes his head, stubborn line of his mouth growing thin. “He did it once before. Maybe twice. Gavin, listen to me--”

Gavin doesn’t answer. Gavin doesn’t _look_ because dead men don’t speak and he is _compliant_ he is--

_between_

“This is just making it worse, Quinn. Let him loose.”

“And spend my day supergluing his skull back together? No. He’s at 94% stress--”

“If I’m wrong, you shut him down and wipe him again.”

“It’s _better_ this way-- You know how much work it is to spoof the compliance software?”

“Quinn, just do it.”

Muscles-tendons-joints, bursting into motion

_dead you’re dead you’re dead_

A last exhalation across his skin and

As soon as the motor block releases Gavin is shoving off the table and just as soon stumbling back, away, but the dead man moves with him.

Warm hand on his wrist. Catching it, dragging it up and around, to the back of his neck. Too-warm skin _dead you’re dead you’re dead_ and Gavin is digging his fingers into the fabric of his shirt, bearing his knuckles hard into the ridge of Connor’s collarbone, and the dead man grimaces but doesn’t relent.

“Look. Gavin, _look._ ”

Fingers moving blindly from smooth skin to roped scars to the cold spark of circuitry. There’s an electronic prosthetic embedded in the scarred skin, there. Gavin opens an interface on reflex; reaching out to identify and--

_seeing_

light and code and _life_

// Epidural stim-bridge CyberLife #TL4350c  
C5-C6 spinal cord 85% transection  
AIS Grade A complete impairment //

Surface information, uninteresting, because beneath, _beneath_ \--

Basic electrical code - the millivolt shifts of ion conductance in descending nerves - spilling over into integrative circuitry, a modified biocomponent able to approximate human physiology. _Integrated_ , interpreting descending biological code and sending it down, to muscle; taking ascending sensory data and continuing it forward, to the brain. Heat and pain and touch--

Connor gently pushing the resisting hand away, dragging him close. Breath warm on Gavin’s neck, and Gavin is elsewhere. Watching circuits he understands lighting up with the ones he doesn’t; biology giving way to thirium-driven circuitry, and back again.

Warm breath against his shoulder. “Try not to bust anything.”

Seeing it. Seeing _Connor_ , in transient spits of light.

Living, breathing code. Sporadic, disorganized, but he can tease the pattern apart, find function and purpose and--

_connor connor connor_

Spelled out in unseen code and Connor only huffs a laugh. “Easy. That tickles.” Pushes back enough to catch his gaze, draw him back, out of that mesmerizing circuitry. “You with me, Gavin?”

“Connor,” is the first thing he says. Halting, uncertain. Then the words spill, overmodulated and rusting apart: “I’m sorry _I’m sorry_ I couldn’t _wake up_ I couldn’t--”

“I know, Gav. We fell together, remember? And we got back up. Just took awhile.”

He’s reluctant to break the interface, but does. Human code - _Connor_ , in light and circuitry - leaving his fingertips humming. Connor stumbles against him, grimaces. Rights himself. Quinn is a hand on his elbow, shooting Gavin a hard look.

“M’alright,” Connor murmurs. “How is he?”

“43% stress and dropping.” Quinn’s pulling a window up on the tablet. A simple sequence. It’s reading: // hj2#o w0X$d //

He throws the tablet down with a clatter. “Good job, you successfully deviated my perfectly good android.”

“C’mon, Quinn. Gavin makes a better deviant.”

“He was shit at being obedient, if you ask me. How many lives are you on?”

“Lost count,” Gavin answers. Grins crookedly.

Quinn pulls the hardline free. The both of them are looking him over. Connor smiles at him, quiet, reassuring; Quinn slaps him on the shoulder. “Last one, tin man. Better make it count.”

**Author's Note:**

> Check out the full-sized glory of the art over on [Jarofalives' Twitter here!](https://twitter.com/tinyalivka/status/1147966914666389505)
> 
> This fic and art was brought to you by/for the D:BH New ERA Discord, which is open to all! You can join [right over here.](https://discord.gg/GqvNzUm)
> 
> Thanks to [FlashThroughLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlashThroughLight) for the beta read, and [Cosmoscorpse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmoscorpse/pseuds/cosmoscorpse) for the alpha read and title suggestion :D


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